liii 



%r% ^7^ '''""' vr% J ^." 



r^lff l\lf^ Ty, J ■'] ^ 



iiifc 






J 




GEORQ 




Class Hl /K-?^ ^ . 
Book * n^ / / 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE GIRL WHO FOUND 
THE BLUE BIRD 




IIKLKX K'KI,LER 



THE GIRL WHO FOUND 
THE BLUE BIRD 

A VISIT TO HELEN KELLER 



BY 

GEORGETTE LEBLANC 

(Madame Maurice Maeterlinck) 



TRANSLATED BY 

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS 



With Portraits ^ 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1914 



«v^ 






Copyright, 1913, 
By DODD. mead AND COMPANY 



OCT I 1914 






ILLUSTRATIONS 

Helen Keller . . • Frontispiece 

Georgette Leblanc . . Facing page 62 



PART I 



1 HOUGH I lived for centuries, 
i should not forget a colour, a 
shade, a line, nor any single detail 
of the thousand that form the mem- 
ory of my visits to Helen Keller, 
the celebrated deaf, dumb and 
blind American girl. 

We are always making fresh ac- 
quaintances; we look upon it as a 
natural, everyday occurrence. We 
go to meet an unknown person 
with less emotion than we feel when 
visiting for the first time a coun- 
try or a cathedral; and yet it is 
often for us the preface to a great 
event. 

If we could divine the existence 
of exceptional creatures and go 
through the world seeking them, 



-C 4 > 

even as we go from one museum to 
another, then our travels would, 
in my opinion, be far more interest- 
ing and of far greater beauty. 

The mystery of our meetings is 
infinite, for each individual is a 
new experience. We have been 
told his name, his birth and his 
position ; and yet we know nothing. 
What is his inner hfe? What are 
the qualities of his mind and heart? 
What are his interests, his long- 
ings, his sorrows and his joys? In 
a word, what are the elements that 
widen or narrow the distance be- 
tween us? Is a word enough to 
make us hope that we have bridged 
that gulf? Or shall we need 
months merely to perceive the 
other side, shall we be years in 
winding round its edges? 

We look at each other, we smile, 
we go in quest of each other, 



-C 5 > 

Sometimes we find each other for 
an instant in the little path of 
common tastes and fondly imagine 
that we are alike. But the gulf 
is still there! In vain we look 
down into its depths: it consists 
of a formidable past that is sealed 
to us, of a character which we 
shall never really know, of an in- 
tangible soul and of a spirit dif- 
ferent from our own; it consists of 
a thousand things, all foreign to 
ourselves, which nevertheless, when 
entering into our spirit, will take 
its form, even as a liquid takes the 
shape of the vessel that contains it. 
And this will give us the eternal 
and charming illusion of under- 
standing and of being understood. 
The strong consider one another 
at a distance, the restless clash to- 
gether, the weak, staggering one 
towards the other, find themselves 



momentarily erect again; but very 
rarely do we know the wild, ro- 
mantic delight of blending in per- 
fect harmony our ideas, our wishes 
and our dreams. 

It was with these thoughts that 
I went to Wrentham, where Helen 
Keller lives, my heart wrung with 
a twofold emotion, knowing that 
I was going to encounter an ad- 
mirable intelligence, but never hop- 
ing to make myself understood; 
certain of finding myself in the 
presence of a perfect soul, yet im- 
agining no opening through which 
to reach it. No doubt, our meet- 
ing would be governed by new 
laws; but what manner of laws? 

Dear Helen, you were soon to 
prove to me that, by the straight 
highways of simplicity and trust, 
two minds can pass beyond looks 
and words and find each other. 



II 

Never shall I forget my long 
motor-drive through the mournful 
country-side. The wheels sink 
deep into the snow; the desolate 
trees lift their gaunt boughs in 
vain appeal to the leaden sky. We 
go through pine-woods: how elo- 
quent is their sombre velvet in this 
cold setting! We pass humble vil- 
lages: the black wooden cabins re- 
mind me of the ishas; I might be in 
Russia. But here and there ap- 
pears a cottage painted light- 
green, orange-red or bright-yel- 
low; and then, with the dazzling 
snow that frames it, the landscape 
makes me think of a Japanese 
print with its white margins. 
As the roads and banks are 

7 



-c 8 :^ 

buried under the snow, the car 
bounds along, jolting incessantly- 
over invisible obstacles. No one 
seems alarmed and nothing stays 
our rapid pace, for, in America, 
people go faster than elsewhere 
and think less of danger. This 
crisp air is so heavily laden with 
electricity that, at every moment, 
the touch of one's hands creates a 
spark; and it gives an impression 
of life crackling under a glass sky. 
There is no mist, no rain, no list- 
lessness, no dreaming. Unfet- 
tered by the past, all the forces of 
the race go straight ahead. 

To-day, my excursion is made 
under the guidance of a charming 
girl; for you no sooner express a 
wish in this country, where hospi- 
tality is a religion, than all your 
friends are at your service. I en- 
joy watching my companion, a 



•C 9 3- 

thorough American, for all her 
French charm of manner. Her 
profile is smiling and grave, her 
beauty at once bold and reticent; 
and her whole person breathes a 
most attractive air of mingled in- 
dependence and seriousness. She 
represents to me the fair flower of 
an unfamiliar land and an unfa- 
miliar system of education; and I 
find myself studying her with equal 
curiosity and sympathy. Yester- 
day, we were at the same party, 
dancing and singing late into the 
night. And, now, the winter sun 
has not yet risen and we are both 
thinking with anguish, in the icy 
morn, of the poor unknown sister 
towards whom we are hasten- 
ing. 

Every one directs us on our way, 
for Helen Keller is immensely 
popular. When we reach Wren- 



•C10 3- 

tham, we are at once told where 
she lives: 

"Go right through the village; 
it's the first house standing by it- 
self." 

Both of us are pressing our faces 
to the window and we see first a 
small, one-storeyed building, with 
a long inscription over the door: 

"That's the hbrary which Miss 
Keller presented to the village," 
says my friend. 

But we are already past the 
cluster of farms and villas that con- 
stitute Wren tham; and yonder, on 
a slight eminence, appears the 
house which we are seeking, a large 
cottage standing white in its 
white garden. As the car begins 
to mount the slope, the sun throws 
off its last morning veil and the 
shadows of the trees lengthen 
across the ghttering snow. 



•cll:^ 

My heart shrinks as* I behold 
that familiar picture which She 
has never seen. Our car stops. 
The church clock in the distance 
strikes ten; and its booming voice 
mingles with the laughter of the 
harness-bells dancing along the 
road. A dog barks persistently in 
a farm hard by. Does the snow, 
which deadens the sound of wheels 
and footsteps, make voices seem 
louder, as though they were strik- 
ing against invisible walls to come 
back to us more merrily? I feel 
as though I hear too clearly. . . . 

I look at the house bright 
with many windows, all uncur- 
tained. Is there not something 
ironical in this? 

On two sides of the cottage are 
white-painted wooden piazzas; and 
one of them is prolonged to form 
a pergola. A few brave, belated 



-C12:}- 

leaves cling round the pillars. 
Why is it all so pretty? 

A row of windows close together 
form a charming verandah: here 
again there are no curtains. What 
is the use of all this readiness to 
welcome the sweet country into 
her home? 

Her home! How cruel it looks 
to me in the smiling perfection of 
its beauty! How gay and lively 
everything appears! 

A few seconds ago, I was hear- 
ing sounds with singular intensity; 
and now I am ashamed at the un- 
natural distinctness with which I 
see the smallest things. . . . 

I have been unconsciously fol- 
lowing my companion's firm step. 
After crossing one of the piazzas, 
we entered the hall. She sent in 
our names; and we are now wait- 
ing in the parlour. It is a gay 



<1B> 

and hospitable room, flooded with 
daylight. Flowers everywhere, 
bright colours, patches of sunlight 
playing on the waxed floor. On 
one side, the winter landscape fills 
the broad, bare windows; on 
the other, the eager flames leap in 
the great fireplace: the impression 
is sharply divided, like a fruit hard 
and sour in one part, soft and mel- 
low in another. 

Standing with my eyes fixed on 
the pallid country, I think of 
Helen; and giddily, as, in our 
dreams, we run to the brink of a 
precipice, I turn a shuddering gaze 
towards the landmarks of her stu- 
pendous life. 

I first heard the name of Helen 
Keller, some years ago, through 
our friend Gerard Harry. 

*'Don't leave America without 
seeing Helen Keller," he said. 



-c:i4> 

**What Mark Twain observed 
about her has become a classic: 
*The two most interesting char- 
acters of the nineteenth century are 
Napoleon and Helen Keller.' " 

"What has she done?" 

"She is deaf, dumb and blind; 
she reads German, French, Latin 
and Greek ; she has passed the most 
difficult examinations at Radcliffe 
College; she has written her auto- 
biography ; and she is only twenty- 
eight." 

A few days later, I had read 
her story and, with deep emotion, 
had traversed with her the suc- 
cessive stages of her deliverance/ 
Helen's hfe! A mad ascent, a 

1 Not long after, two studies appeared on 
Helen Keller: Man's Miracle^ by Gerard 
Harry; and Le Cas de Miss Keller, an article 
by Marie Len^ru in which that admirable 
writer translates extracts from Helen Keller's 
essay, Sense and Sensibility. 



I 



superhuman determination to 
come up merely with the normal 
being. But, lik^ the swift run- 
ner, she goes beyond the goal. 

I will not here repeat the details 
of a biography which is now 
known on both sides of the At- 
lantic. Besides, one hesitates to in- 
sist on heredity in this connection, 
for the reason that the phe- 
nomenon which Helen presents ut- 
terly removes her from all idea of 
lineage. She is more isolated than 
any living creature, first by her 
inferiority and next by her su- 
periority, for the perfect being 
must be solitary, even as the ripe 
fruit separates from the tree. 

I will give simply the main out- 
lines of her life. Until the age of 
nineteen months, Helen was simi- 
lar to other children: she owes her 
physical defects to an illness. 



She has therefore faintly beheld 
the glory of the noontide, the glow 
of evening, the abyss of night. 
Presently, her detractors — for not 
even this detail is lacking to her 
fame — will make use of that fact 
to depreciate her merits. 

"The child born blind and deaf 
is a lump of matter," wrote Biich- 
ner. 

And his fellow-countrymen will 
say: 

"As Helen Keller once saw and 
heard, all that she now does is to 
remember." 

Certainly our heroine has seen 
the world and may have retained 
the image of it; but her conscious- 
ness, which developed long after- 
wards, had to blossom in its dark- 
ness; and it was into the intellect 
that its roots delved to find their 
nourishment. Besides, what is the 



value of a memory, other than its 
own value? The beauty of the 
soul diminishes or increases all that 
descends into it ; and we can never 
fill more than the cup that is held 
out to us. 

Until the age of nine years, 
Helen Keller is a monster. A 
peevish and unmanageable little 
animal, she struggles and suffers 
without knowing it. Then a 
young governess, Anne Mansfield 
Sullivan, comes to her and under- 
takes her education with the pa- 
tience of a saint. She invents 
methods of communication: first, 
the designation of objects, the 
names of which she traces on the 
child's hand; next, the connection 
between words and things. Fol- 
lows the awakening of thought, the 
exercise of reflection, until at last, 
by means of more and more subtle 



-C18 3- 

experiments, a conception of the 
abstract is attained. One fine 
summer's day, while Anne SulU- 
van is endeavouring to make the 
child enter into the kingdom of the 
feelings, Helen, after hesitating 
between the warmth of the sun and 
the scent of the flowers clasped in 
her small fingers, throws herself 
into Anne's arms. She has 
grasped the fact that love lies 
there, in the heart of her rescuer. 
We are appalled at the thought 
of that pregnant moment, when 
Helen's mind was awakened simul- 
taneously to the sense of its awful- 
ness and of its power. Turning to- 
wards the darkness, Helen asked 
for the Ught; and she turned and 
turned in vain, like a sufl*erer on 
a bed of torment! The gradation 
that enables us to bear our trou- 



bles by accustoming us to them 
did not exist for her. At each 
movement, that captive soul re- 
ceived a mortal blow; and this at 
the happy age when a child's 
laughter at every moment gains 
a fresh triumph. 

By what miracle did Helen's 
reason survive? Does moral force 
exist in a poor little creature who 
is still separated from the world 
by the slenderest of partitions? 
No; and I believe that Helen was 
saved because she already pos- 
sessed the passion for conquest. 
She gauges an obstacle only the 
better to overcome it. 

From the day on which Helen 
Keller first became a sentient be- 
ing, her progress was unprec- 
edented and swifter than that of 
nonnal children; her imagination 



-C20> 

was surprising; and we see shining 
in the depths of her darkness the 
divine spirit of enquiry that will 
support her all the days of her life. 
She thinks, she improves her mind, 
she writes; she is zealous and ac- 
tive; she creates institutions for 
the welfare of the blind, founds 
libraries, interests herself in poli- 
tics, travels, plays games and visits 
museums. 

Does this mean that Helen does 
not suffer? Let there be no mis- 
take made: though the troubles of 
super-beings are less apparent to 
our eyes, though such beings do 
not fill the air with their cries and 
clamours, they nevertheless suffer 
more intensely than others, for our 
sufferings are proportionate to 
our powers of resistance. 

We attribute to the dying man 
regrets which he no longer has, 



for everything disperses together. 
Even so, the misfortunes that as- 
sail us when we are in our prime 
find room only within the compass 
of our soul. 



Ill 

Out suddenly a sound of foot- 
steps rouses me from my reverie: 
I hear some one in the distance, 
on the echoing stairs; it is She, it 
is certain to be She! A sort of 
enthusiastic fear quickens my 
whole being ; and my thoughts riot 
like a swarm of midges in a ray 
of sunshine. In a moment I shall 
see her! What will she be like? 
Wliat sort of face will she have, 
what sort of expression and bear- 
ing? How are we going to com- 
municate? How shall I penetrate 
into her prison? Alas! I de- 
clined, when she so kindlv offered 
to come to me yesterday. I 
wanted to meet her in her own 
home, amid her familiar surround- 

32 



-C23> 

ings. All this is often indicative 
of character; and, now that I am 
here, my fancy seems to me child- 
ish. Is she not ever and always in 
her tower of darkness and silence? 
What can colour or form or har- 
mony matter to her? Are not her 
relations to things cold and life- 
less? Does her splendid isolation 
touch the outer w^orld at any point? 
How can I hope to find her more 
easily in her house than amid the 
triviality of an hotel sitting-room? 
She is here, close to me, on the 
arm of Mrs. Macy, her teacher, 
her good angel, her life. I saw 
her coming from the far end of 
three large rooms separated by 
wide bays. She is here! At first, 
I could not believe that this was 
she, this smiling girl who seemed 
to be looking at me out of her fine 
blue eyes; and I instinctively 



turned to Mrs. Macy, who herself 
was blind until the age of twenty 
and who still wears a white veil to 
temper the light to her weak eyes. 
But Helen spoke! With an ef- 
fort, she pronounces a few words 
of welcome; and, when I hear that 
voice which comes from an abyss, 
that laugh, that ghostly laugh, 
which echoes through her silence 
like revellers' footsteps in the still- 
ness of the night, I feel the hateful 
distance that parts us and I am 
filled with dread. 

You will forgive me, dear 
Helen, and your generous soul will 
smile indulgently down in your 
crystal darkness. You know that 
we apply the term miracle to all 
that surpasses our understanding 
and that, directly we come into 
touch with the finer realities, our 
instinctive alarm clothes them in 



mystery. And so, when our two 
souls sought each other, mine, 
bhnded with tears, was the one that 
was really astray: too far to hear 
your call, too weak to come to you 
at once, it was in despair at not 
finding the road to the kingdom 
which it felt was near at hand. 
Since that day, we have become 
friends, I have understood you and 
I know that, in telling you to-day 
what I suffered during our first 
interview, I shall be revealing noth- 
ing to your wondrous vision. 
How your pity rose superior to 
mine, when I instinctively turned 
away my face wet with tears while 
my lips formed trembling words 
beneath your fingers I . . . 

From the moment, therefore, 
when I first set eyes on Helen 
Keller, I was excited, anguish- 
stricken, shuddering, tossed inces- 



-C26> 

santly between enthusiasm and 
horror, by turns astounded and re- 
volted, incapable of estimating, 
grasping or analysing my impres- 
sions; my imagination was dis- 
traught, my reason unbalanced, my 
whole mind was in disorder; and 
this first visit was wholly dominated 
by the force and novelty of my sen- 
sations. While Helen, with seren- 
ity stamped upon her brow, but 
yet curious about my life, spoke 
and asked me a thousand questions, 
gathering unwitting answers from 
my mouth, it was I who was deaf 
and dumb and blind in the pres- 
ence of that being who seemed to 
see me without seeing, to hear me 
without hearing and to speak to 
me from the heart of the unknown, 
for my senses had suddenly become 
useless and surged blindly against 
faculties which I perceived with- 



I 



<27> 

out being able to understand 
them. My brain formulated so- 
lutions which it saw to be mad: 

"While Helen is undoubtedly 
deprived of our manner of hearing 
and seeing, does she not possess a 
sixth and a seventh sense whose 
existence we do not suspect?" 

I stood dismayed in the presence 
of that power whose stupendous 
mystery baffled me at every in- 
stant and whose greatness I could 
only measure by the excess of my 
own bewilderment. . . . 

The person who wouJd venture 
to speak dogmatically of Helen 
Keller after an hour's visit may 
be taken to belong to the vast fam- 
ily of the demented, who behold 
without seeing, listen without hear- 
ing and speak without understand- 
ing. 



IV 

When I saw the two women 
come forward, I took a few steps 
to meet them; and this brought us 
to the hall. In America, as in 
England, the intimacy of most 
of the houses greets you on 
the threshold. The cold entrance- 
lobby, where we too often leave 
with our furs or our sunshades 
some of our inner warmth or light, 
does not exist. Here, the hall con- 
nects the parlour and the dining- 
room without interrupting their 
hospitable charm. There are 
flowers and books upon a table; 
deep easy-chairs are drawn up to 
the blazing logs; and one is often 
thick in conversation on the first 
steps of the staircase. 



<29y 

We are standing close together. 
Helen has not left the arm of her 
companion, whose husband, a 
young American with a smile full 
of sympathy and understanding, 
has now joined the group. Helen 
is tall and well-developed. She 
has a finely-shaped head and well- 
cut, regular features: the nose al- 
most classically straight; the 
rather full mouth nobly cui^ed; 
the chin small but firm; the eyes 
set in their deep sockets, alas, to 
screen a too-penetrating glance; 
and, dominating all, a lofty brow, a 
high, square forehead that attracts 
and holds the attention. Is it be- 
cause the eyes are lacking that it 
seems so much alive? Very clear, 
very smooth, with only a tiny fur- 
row grooved in the centre by effort 
and study, it is indeed the sun of 
that countenance, bathing it with 



its radiance. You feel that, if you 
covered it, everything would grow 
dim. Encircling her brow is a 
black-velvet ribbon, its edges pret- 
tily worked with very dainty steel 
beads. Her chestnut hair, dressed 
low down in the neck, is devoid of 
wave or parting and drawn back 
into a tight knot behind. At the 
utmost, a softening touch may oc- 
casionally be given by a lock which 
has eluded the imprisoning ribbon 
and strayed on her temples; and 
yet this severe style suits her and, 
when we study her profile and her 
rather masculine throat, straight 
and pure as a column, we are re- 
minded of the Athenian youths on 
some bas-relief. 

Helen always holds herself very 
erect, almost to stiffness, and her 
dress is that of any other American 
girl away from the big centres. 



The full, grey-cloth skirt and the 
blouse of embroidered ninon sug- 
gest a well-proportioned and 
softly-rounded figure. She ges- 
ticulates freely; and the nervous 
vigour of her movements is full of 
interest and significance. Her 
arms have the force of tv^o strange 
little people, the ready hands, now 
insistent, now receptive, forming 
the mysterious little heads, de- 
voted to the service of an invisible 
sovereign. While those hands 
actually hear and speak, they also 
appear to see, so quick are they 
to grasp things or avoid them. 
They are the outriders of Helen's 
firm step and recoil instinctively 
from the obstacle before coming 
in contact with it. 

I have mentioned Helen's step. 
It alone is a revelation. All her 
energy, her tenacity, her pluck, 



her superhuman courage, all her 
power is there, in that firm and 
rapid walk which seems to dart 
forward under the constant gov- 
ernance of an irresistible law. 
You have but to observe the girl 
for a moment to feel in her an im- 
petuous force, captive passions that 
at first knock impatiently at closed 
doors and then escape by unsus- 
pected outlets. Very few people 
give so powerful an impression of 
vitality. In a drawing-room full 
of visitors, in a volatile atmosphere 
of glances, smiles and chatter, 
Helen, quivering as the forest 
quivers in the night wind, change- 
ful, impetuous, eloquent as nature 
itself, or suddenly terrifying in her 
adamantine immobility, Helen 
would proclaim the victory of the 
inner life and would stand there, 



in the midst of pleasure, like a 
sublime and eternal interroga- 
tion! . . . 



At moments of direct communi- 
cation, that is to say, when Helen 
gathers on my lips a scarce-opened 
thought that seems to blossom in 
the warmth of her intelligent hand, 
her grave expression first denotes 
attention; next a joyous convul- 
sion of her whole body takes us by 
surprise. It is a movement bril- 
liant as a lightning-flash which tells 
us that her darkness is suddenly 
riven. Thus her erect and formal 
bearing is constantly broken by 
shivers which are caused by noth- 
ing that is apparent to those who 
watch her. To her, they corre- 
spond with so many vibrations and 
with a whole little world of sensa- 
tions which we do Hot perceive. 

34 



-{:35> 

Those faint thrills and violent con- 
vulsions, which make her start ex- 
actly as though she had received 
an electric shock, are the revelation 
of a life that has its own laws and 
its own conventions. 

Her features retain no trace of 
the terrible battles that must have 
been waged within her at the time 
of life's awakening. And yet how 
she must have battered herself 
against her prison-walls before ac- 
cepting that life; with what rebel- 
lious and what mad despair she 
must at first have flung herself 
upon the doors that would not 
let her through! I feel her to 
be ardent and passionate, full of 
health and of impatience. This 
woman whom I am observing 
with all my powers and who 
sometimes quivers under my 
glance as though it reached her 



mind, this woman assuredly is not 
one of the meek. Her face is 
modelled by the cruel and exqui- 
site fingers of an infinite sensibility ; 
her nostrils seize and savour the 
slightest breeze and, at such times, 
tremble with a longing that sets 
her face rippling like water brushed 
by a bird's wing. 

Her mouth, the idle servant of 
the mind, the servant straying in 
silence: more than any other is it 
not devoted to the pleasure of 
ready smiles, of sunshine and roses? 
And do not her ever-flickering eye- 
lids seem to droop over quivering 
glances? Everything in her be- 
trays perpetual alarms; but I feel 
that she is armed and ready for the 
fray. I see her, blind as she is, 
sword in hand. Bravely she 
fights, without flinching; she puri- 
fies her dreams, without chasing 



-C37> 

them away ; she stands her ground, 
measures forces and wins. She 
strikes back boldly at life as it 
assails her; and, when beaten, 
she is able in her secret soul to draw 
victory out of her defeat. She 
knows the triumph that belongs to 
the vanquished. Sh^ has learnt 
that, in the great balance of all- 
pervading injustice, there is no 
such thing as lasting sorrow. For, 
while the palms and laurels weigh 
down one scale, sorrow rises in the 
other, rises in soUtude, thus pro- 
claiming the one victory that can 
crown its proud beauty. 

I am not mistaken. It is a su- 
perhuman energy that incessantly 
brings Helen back to the essential 
peace; and I tremble when I think 
of that force which is ever going 
from the night into the night, of 
that force which wakes and falls 



-C38 3- 

asleep, works, laughs and moves 
in darkness. . . . 

What celestial treasure is it that 
each morning, in the recesses of a 
prison-house, creates anew the 
charm of dawn and sunlight? 



VI 

We are sitting in the parlour; 
and Mr. Macy's hand is now speak- 
ing to Helen's. The girl bends 
her head as though the better to 
absorb the revealing element; she 
smiles and answers with her nimble 
fingers. Then her friend stands 
up and moves away . , . and we 
suddenly see Helen's silence! I 
see it: it is tangible and so heavy 
that it seems gradually to arrest all 
conversation. I have lost the 
power of speech. My thoughts 
leave the bright room and I pass 
through the same terrifying sensa- 
tion which I experienced once be- 
fore, when visiting a mine a thou- 
sand feet below ground: I then 
thought that the weight of the 



world was bearing upon my frail 
shoulders; and it was as though I 
could not find room to breathe in 
the interminable gallery. I look 
at Helen, immured upright, enig- 
matic in her tomb. No, I cannot 
imagine that her silence, which is 
eternal, can be soft, peaceful and 
sweet like ours, like that which we 
seek and which we love because it 
steeps us in unalloyed joy. Hers 
seems to me to be of lead, similar 
to that which is broken by the de- 
cisive words or deeds that come to 
inflict a mortal wound upon our 
soul. And it reminds me also of 
the most terrible of all silences, 
that of the waiting which has out- 
lasted hope. The air that sur- 
roimds us at such times seems to 
harden like plaster; and our feet 
can no longer bear us, our hands 
can no longer meet, our tears are 



dried and our heart stops beating. 
An icy breath is upon us; and we 
feel that, when death comes, it must 
come like this. 

I should like to speak, so as to 
cease thinking; I should like to 
make a movement : why is it impos- 
sible? I suffer, I choke on the 
brink of the darkness where I feel 
that She breathes. She dwells 
in a solitude where my imagina- 
tion loses itself. Where is she? 
Where is she? The gulf that 
opens before me is too deep; my 
sensations, my thoughts, my senti- 
ments roll into it without the least 
echo reaching my ears. I am as 
one who throws stones into a well 
to sound its depth and who, hear- 
ing no sound, measures infinity by 
the answering silence. Thus I 
gauge the force of the impression 
made upon me by the sudden 



eclipse of my life. . • . Still, I 
must flee from my too vivid emo- 
tions, I must escape from Helen's 
silence. I try to turn away from 
it, but it is everywhere: was it not 
this silence that broke up the con- 
versation and separated each one 
of us? My friend stands leaning 
against the chimney-piece; she 
holds out first one small foot 
and then the other to the flames. 
Mrs. Macy is looking for a book; 
and Mr. Macy is at the window 
in the next room, gazing out 
upon the wintry landscape. No, 
it is not the silence that has 
divided them, for Mr. Macy and 
his wife know the infinite loneli- 
ness of their dear sister; as for 
my companion, that daring little 
Amazon is very seldom seized 
with panic. No, they have moved 
away so that I may converse 



with Helen by myself. I have but 
to take her hand: I will place it 
softly to my mouth; Helen will 
understand me, will answer me; 
and slowly, reverently I shall ap- 
proach her soul and break her si- 
lence. , . . But, if it appears to me 
unsurmountable, that is because the 
mighty rush of my own life comes 
breaking against it like a wave, 
because I arrive on the threshold 
of the sanctuary a prey to vain agi- 
tations, because the noise of the 
world is still ringing wildly in the 
caverns of my brain and because 
my face, my hands, my hair and 
the very folds of my dress are still 
spangled with all the unknown 
glances. . . . 

In the inevitable oneness of your 
soul, Helen, you do not know the 
exaltation that arises from self-de- 
tachment. It exists in life; but on 



the stage it is all-powerful : you do 
not know what a perturbing thing 
it is to feel sorrow, joy and love, 
to outstretch our arms, to measure 
our steps, to smile or weep, all in 
the little space formed by another's 
thoughts. In a counterfeit ray of 
moonlight, through words learnt 
by rote and sentiments deliberately 
assumed, we pour out our very 
souls, for truth alone can soften 
and subdue. . . . 

That is why, on entering your 
house, I was at once afraid of my 
overwrought nerves, of my un- 
bridled feelings. It is I, in my 
palace with the thousand open 
doors, I who tremble at receiving 
you. My ears, Helen, are filled 
with wondrous harmonies, my eyes 
are heavy with fair visions and my 
lips distil, together with the flowers 
of gladness, the divine fictions of 



the poets. Under the limpid skies 
of your young country, my fondly- 
pampered emotion is incessantly in 
advance of my reason. I have 
quitted solitude, for a time, quitted 
the temple whither we return 
nightly to lay at the feet of our 
gods the treasures amassed 
throughout the day. Let me col- 
lect myself, dear Helen; for my 
eyes, ears and lips are the willing 
victims of life. 

I leant my head on the blind 
girl's shoulder. She gave a shiver, 
slowly clasped her hands and 
pressed them to my heart. I felt 
that her breath was coming more 
quickly; I looked at her: she was 
pale and turned her face towards 
me. I imagined that she saw me 
at that moment, for a tear softened 
her eyes. Can one say that eyes 
are dead when there still shines 



^46> 

from them an expression so elo- 
quently alive? 

In a very low tone, she articu- 
lated: 

"I have found your heart." 
Then, after a long silence, nerv- 
ously, as though obeying the im- 
pulse of an admirable discipline, 
she raised her head proudly, tried 
to smile and turned full to the sun, 1 

which came and played in her 
glazed pupils. J 



VII 

Helen wishes to show me her 
study, drags me away posthaste. 

"Don't be astonished," says Mrs. 
Macy, laughing. ''Helen cannot 
walk slowly. I no longer try to 
keep up with her in the country: 
she used to tire me too much. 
Now, she goes out with my hus- 
band ; and they take long walks to- 
gether in the morning." 
*'Does she get up early?" 
"She is always the first," replies 
Mrs. Macy. "She is up at six 
o'clock, dresses and does her hair 
by herself; and she even likes do- 
ing her own room. She must al- 
ways be active. Do you see that 
wire," she asked, going to a win- 
dow, "stretched from tree to tree 

47 



all round the grounds? That is to 
let Helen run about freely without 
fear of hurting herself. When she 
wants exercise, she takes hold of 
the wire and scampers along it, in 
wind, rain or snow, like a regular 
boy." 

Full of curiosity, I go on asking 
questions. Mr. Macy answers 
them all; and I learn that every 
day, after the morning walk in the 
country, Helen comes back to 
work. She is at present writing an 
essay on the submerged tenth, for 
her heart aches over the sufferings 
of the poor. She takes a keen in- 
terest in politics ; Mrs. Macy inter- 
prets the newspaper to her; and 
the afternoons are spent quietly in 
reading, working and thinking. 
Helen is fond of every kind of 
sport: she boats, rides and loves 
bicycling tandem, for the speed of 



-C 49 > 

it intoxicates her and puts her in 
the highest spirits. She loves her 
dogs ; and they love her and accom- 
pany her on all her expeditions. 
She receives so many letters, from 
all over the world, that she is unable 
to reply to any but those which in- 
terest her specially. Often young 
girls come out from Boston to visit 
her: she likes their gaiety. She 
can embroider, knit and do every 
sort of needlework; but more seri- 
ous occupations attract her fine in- 
teUigence. Sometimes, as a relaxa- 
tion from the work of the day, she 
plays cards or chess in the evening. 
They show me the ingenious chess- 
board contrived for her use and the 
cards which she names to me one 
by one, handling them with such 
dexterity that I have hardly time 
to perceive the little raised signs 
with which they are marked. 



We are now in the study. This 
is Helen's kingdom. Again, 
floods of light, more light than any- 
where else, and a silence that seems 
to me to be increased by that host 
of white books which speak only to 
her fingers. On the table in the 
middle of the room stands a type- 
writer specially constructed for the 
blind girl's use; on the wall, I see 
a medallion of Homer hung low 
enough for her easily to reach and 
touch it; and I remember the mov- 
ing lines which she devotes to it in 
her Story of my Life: 

"How well I know each line in that 
majestic brow: tracks of life and bitter 
evidences of struggle and sorrow; those 
sightless eyes seeking, even in the cold 
plaster, for the light and the blue skies of 
his beloved Hellas, but seeking in vain.** 

And she quotes these lines of the 
great poet whom she loves : 



"O dark^ dark, dark, amid the blaze 

of noon, 
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day !" 

Behind the chair in which she 
sits is a wide bow-window with 
shelves on which pots of flowers are 
arranged as in a conservatory. On 
her right, another window brings 
her the first rays of the morning. 
Everything is bright, wholesome 
and happy-looking, with no vain 
luxury. It is good to be here and 
to inhale real life, stripped of all 
its useless ornaments. Flowers, 
light and books make Helen's 
kingdom. 

I examine the big volumes stand- 
ing on shelves along the two main 
walls of the room. Mr. and Mrs. 
Macy explains that the blind girl 
reads from embossed characters 
and from braille, which has sev- 



eral variations. The ordinary em- 
bossed book is printed in roman 
type, but the characters, which are 
very simply designed, are square 
and sharply angular; the small let- 
ters are nearly a fifth of an inch 
high ; and they are raised above the 
page to about the thickness of a 
thumb-nail. The size of the books 
is similar to that of a volume of an 
encyclopsedia. I take up one and 
am surprised at its lightness, which 
is due to the fact that, as the char- 
acters in relief prevent the sheets 
from lying quite flat, the number 
of pages in a volume is bound to be 
small. There are not many books 
of this kind, for they are very ex- 
pensive to produce; but Helen's 
friends have had everything that 
was likely to interest her specially 
set up; and I judge the extent of 
her culture from the titles which 



Mrs. Macy reads out to me. These 
include all the great philosophers, 
poets and dramatists: Shake- 
speare, Horace, ^schylus, Virgil, 
Cicero, Plato, Pascal. She reads 
in their own language the Greeks 
and the Romans, as well as Goethe, 
Schiller and Heine. 

A catholic taste has presided 
over Helen's choice. She is thor- 
oughly versed in French literature 
and fondly quotes to me the most 
varied thoughts of Maeterlinck. 
She has learnt pages of The Blue 
Bird by heart, for the pleasure of 
constantly brightening her solitude 
with them. She recites them to 
me in a shadowy voice which she 
seems to draw from her heart it- 
self; then she gives me for Maeter- 
linck a copy of her latest work, 
The World I live In, and, in a 
firm hand, inscribes it with some 



lines spoken by the Fairy in The 
Blue Bird: 

"All stones are alike, all stones are 
precious, but man sees only a few of 
them." 

"Men are to be pitied," adds 
Helen. "They do not know how 
to be happy." 

And, after a pause : 

"I am sorry for men," she sighs. 



VIII 

We are in Helen's bedroom, on 
the first floor, a very cheerful, very 
tidy, white-walled room. The bed 
faces the window, which opens on a 
large balcony overlooking the gar- 
den. I am told that Helen loves 
to rest her elbows on the rail and 
turn her eyes towards the familiar 
landscape. She goes straight to 
the balcony now; and, as she 
passes from the shadow to the sun- 
shine, she holds out both hands to 
the light and laughs as she feels the 
hot rays upon her face. 

"She adores the sim," says Mr. 
Macy. *'She always receives it as 
an unexpected favour." 

Standing there, heedless of the 
icy air, which she inhales raptur- 

S5 



-{:56> 

ously, Helen cries, like a happy 
child: 

"The sun! . . . The sun!'' 

How primitive she seems to me 
at this moment! She is indeed 
wholly absorbed in a material satis- 
faction: she is one with the earth, 
the trees, the plants, with all the 
animal life which she loves and 
understands with a deeper insight 
than we. 

Are we not often limited by our 
senses? 

"When we see everything, we 
see nothing," wrote that wonder- 
ful woman, Laurent Evrard. 

In front of us, a great tree, 
stripped by the hand of winter, 
stands out against the cold sky. 
Its gnarled roots raise the snow 
like hands folded under a white 
sheet; and its shadow lying stark 
upon the ground is the elegy of its 



spring. This tree calls up a pic- 
ture of human misery. Those 
over-zealous slaves, my eyes, have 
seen much besides the tree ; and, by 
a combination of images evolved in 
my brain, I am at last carried thou- 
sands of miles from what I look 
upon. ^Vhat does Helen see? 
Nothing and everything. Undis- 
tracted by any object, she holds 
communion with space and light 
and with the garden, which has 
yielded all its secrets to her. 
Many a time she has encircled the 
tree with her arms; she has sur- 
prised its whispering to the wind; 
she has considered its leaves; she 
has felt it groaning against her 
heart; she has had the height and 
the shape of its branches explained 
to her; and she has breathed the 
perfume of its bark at all hours of 
the day. If she is now thinking 



•{;58:)- 

of the great tree, she sees it better 
than we do, for all her energies 
are occupied in recreating it in the 
light of her knowledge. 

Our glancq has barely alighted 
before our attention is far away; 
and sometimes even our eyes rest 
on an object without summoning 
our intelhgence. Our laws are 
other; and this is fortunate, for our 
too-busy senses would tyrannise 
over us, if habit did not make them, 
to a certain extent, act indepen- 
dently of us. 

Very often, our eyes and ears 
amuse themselves like children un- 
der the closer contemplation of a 
spirit that is absorbed in itself, 
hearkening only to its own har- 
monies and pursuing its own life, 
one that obliterates shapes and ban- 
ishes sounds ; one that is steeped in 
an eternal radiance; one that, I 



doubt not, taught a Helen Keller 
how to smile, thus by a secret 
glimmer revealing its divine pres- 
ence. 



IX 

It's lunch-time," says Mrs. Macy. 
"You must stay and lunch with 
us." 

Such an atmosphere of simplic- 
ity pervades this house that it 
seems quite natural to me to form 
part of this gracious and charming 
household as long as possible ; and, 
when we go back to the parlour, 
preceded by Helen's vigorous 
step, I find it difficult to believe 
that I am only setting foot in it 
for the second time. One might 
live at Wrentham without making 
any change in the house. In the 
hospitable depths of just such Eng- 
lish easy-chairs, we read our fa- 
vourite books ; the low window-seats 
are a temptation to day-dreams; 

60 



and it is the peace which we cher- 
ish that lies over all these things 
which we ourselves might have 
chosen. Those who live here have 
succeeded, by the force of their in- 
dividual life, in making their home 
what it always should be, but so 
seldom is, a haven: a haven not 
only against the cold and rain, but 
against stealthier foes, enemies 
more difBcult to overcome. Walls 
that ward off intruders, doors that 
shut out the folly and spite of the 
world, a roof that shelters peace 
and happiness. . . . 

There are two forces in this 
house that keep watch like benevo- 
lent goddesses: Anne Sullivan's 
intelligence and her goodness. To 
them Helen owes her life; it is 
they that created her anew. Im- 
prisoned in silence, isolated from 
the world, she was a little animal, 



wild and insentient, struggling in 
the darkness. Anne's heart and 
brain came to set her free; and 
Helen cannot do without them 
now. The two forces that gave her 
life ensure her present quiet con- 
tent. Th^ thought fills me with 
admiration and explains the sense 
of well-being that steals over me. 
With us, intelligence and good- 
ness blossom in the current of in- 
difference that bears good and 
evil, sorrow and joy drifting on 
its waters. These beautiful flowers 
are ours to love, to gather, to 
deck our lives with incessantly; 
but, whereas to us they are an ac- 
tual luxury, the fragrance and the 
glory of our lot, to Helen they are 
a necessity, her daily bread. To 
be of use to her, they had to be- 
come incarnate in a human being, 




GEORGETTE LEBLANC 



to assume a mortal shape and a 
siiperhimian soul and will. 

I see them, those two guardians 
of the sacred prison into which they 
unwearyingly pour daylight, space 
and joy. I breathe them as one 
breathes the incense in a church and 
I find the same quietude; but the 
fabric is a human soul whose mat- 
ter is made of love and spiritual 
light. Except for Anne Sullivan's 
intelligence and goodness, Helen 
would still be what she was at first, 
a living nullity. 

What a superb lesson! Helen 
is not the work of life multiply- 
ing itself blindly: she is the crea- 
tion of a consciousness, the off- 
spring of an intelligence. What 
a rebuke to our discouragement 
and impatience! How great a 
monimient we raise by merely lay- 



ing one stone every day; but how 
humble we must be in the presence 
of the task! 

The parlour clock strikes one. 
I consult my charming guide with 
a glance; and her smile grants me 
a few moments longer. This is 
the time at which lunch is served 
every day. Helen's admirable 
companion has simplified actions 
and habits as much as possible. A 
tray is brought with tea and coffee, 
sandwiches and cakes, thus doing 
away with one of the principal 
meals, those mechanical formalities 
which interrupt the freedom of 
Helen's existence so unpleasantly. 
Mrs. Macy at once sets Helen's 
favourite delicacies before her and, 
with fond solicitude, sugars her tea, 
pours in the cream and places the 
cup and tea-spoon in her hands. 

I like this noble servitude which 



-C65> 

has not sought to make Helen tri- 
umph over the insignificant things 
of life. No doubt, she can help 
herself when necessary and when 
she pleases; but why not save her 
the trouble? Why constrain her 
to spend a precious force to no pur- 
pose? When the brain cannot be 
obeyed instantaneously, when iso- 
lation has divorced the thought 
from the gesture, why bring it 
painfully back? 

When Mrs. Macy placed the 
cup of tea in Helen's hands, Helen 
thanked her with a smile; and at 
that moment I received a vision of 
the wonderful companionship that 
unites the two women. With 
what serene superiority Helen ac- 
cepts to be "the inferior" in daily 
life! Indeed, the blind girl may 
well put out her hands when she is 
hungry and chng to her friend's 



arm when she is tired. She may 
well ask to be assisted in her weak- 
ness, she who from the depths of 
her Imninous darkness extends 
over all those who surround her the 
greatest, the most beautiful, the 
most infinite protection! Is she 
not there, in the house, as a safe- 
guard of beautiful living? She is 
protected, it is true; but see how 
she herself protects others! Can 
we doubt the quality of the bonds 
which unite that admirable trio 
at Wrentham? To the husband 
and wife, Helen's presence has 
the sweetness of a starry night. 
She is an inspiration and an en- 
couragement to those around her 
and draws out the best that lies 
hidden in them. By the very 
force of her helplessness she en- 
treats conscientiousness, she en- 
joins generosity; her virtue calls 



< 67 > 

for equal virtue; hei: energy com- 
mands courage. She is the per- 
manent mystery amid the ordinary 
course of life. What lips, with 
that hand upon them, could have 
the power to utter baseness? 
What fingers would dare to place 
the weight of an unjust word on 
that frail palm so innocently of- 
fered? 

It seems to me that lies must 
needs be cast aside on the threshold 
of her night, like useless garments. 
Before this life consecrated wholly 
to thought, that which is illusory 
must shrivel up, that which is not 
strong must abandon hope, that 
which is not enduring can find no 
peace. Habit and time them- 
selves are vanquished at Wren- 
tham: how could they perform 
their work of destruction, their 
gnawing, levelling and severing? 



-C68> 

The wretched little stream of daily 
needs has not been and never will 
be able to dissolve the indispen- 
sable and sublime alliance between 
Helen and Anne. Can the pris- 
oner grow accustomed to the ray 
of light that finds its way into his 
cell day after day? Should a 
friend succeed in communicating 
with him, can he ever receive with- 
out emotion the words of affection 
that speak to his heart deep down 
in the eternal silence? • . . 



X 

OUDDENLY, I hear Helen's laugh, 
that strange, lost laugh, that far- 
away, strident laugh which to 
my unaccustomed ears sounds like 
a joy in anguish. Mr. Macy 
handed her a cake; she imagined 
that she was taking it, but it fell 
into her lap; and, very quickly, as 
though she wished to save us from 
a painful thought, she laughed. 

I look at Mr. Macy, who smiles 
as he answers : 

"It's always like that, whenever 
she meets with a mishap. If she 
knocks herself, or breaks some- 
thing, or does anything clumsy, she 
makes fim of herself. And then 
she is so cheerful ; she is so fond of 
life: you know, she would like to 



-C70> 

live a thousand years. She loves 
sports and games and, above all, 
study; and, would you believe it, 
she has also a feeling for art." 

"Oh, yes!" his wife chimes in, al- 
ways eager to explain the dear 
prodigy. "Indeed, she sometimes 
wonders if the hand is not more 
sensitive to the beauties of sculp- 
ture than the eye!" 

And I remember those words of 
Helen's in The Story of my Life: 

"I should think the wonderful rhyth- 
mical flow of lines and curves could be 
more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it 
may, I know that I feel the heart-throbs 
of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods 
and goddesses/* 

Anne Sulhvan continues her wel- 
come information : 

"She is very fond of the theatre 
too, I explain the piece to her 
during the performance and she 



^71> 

thinks that she is hving amid the 
events on the stage; she is player 
and spectator in one. She asked 
to meet Irving and Ellen Terry; 
she touched their faces and has re- 
tained an mif orgettable impression 
of them." 

Speaking of Joseph Jefferson, 
who was playing Kip van Winkle 
in New York at the time when 
Helen was still at school, Mrs. 
Macy says: 

"Helen had often read the story, 
but she never felt the charm of it 
as she did in the play. The actor's 
beautiful, pathetic representation 
quite carried her away with delight. 
She has a picture of old Rip in her 
fingers which they will never lose." 

Evidently, Helen has a finger 
memorj^ as we have an ocular and 
aural memory. Anne Sullivan 
tells me that she and her pupil re- 



member "in their fingers" what 
they have said at different times; 
and I learn that, when Helen reads 
a passage which interests her par- 
ticularly, she repeats it on the fin- 
gers of her right hand so as to fix 
it in her brain. Sometimes even 
this gesture becomes unconscious; 
and, when she strolls in the garden, 
they see her making quick, contin- 
ual movements, as though, in spite 
of herself, her vigorous mind felt a 
need to incarnate itself in her val- 
iant hands. 

But the pleasure which she takes 
in the theatre surprises and amazes 
us. By what strange intuition can 
Helen feel the charm of a public 
performance? Alone in her in- 
finite darkness, seeing nothing and 
hearing nothing, while her compan- 
ion tells her what is happening, 
eould she not imagine herself at the 



theatre when she is in the cahn of 
her own room? No and again no; 
and that is where this astonishing 
being asserts her connection with a 
world of which we have no cogni- 
sance. The vibrations strike her, 
the waves of sound caress her, the 
mingled perfmnes envelop her, she 
breathes the hot vaporous air. 
The heavily-charged atmosphere 
peculiar to a playhouse excites and 
stimulates her. The unknown 
agencies that inform her pass to 
and fro between her and the crowd, 
filling voids and satisfying her de- 
vouring curiosity. Her all-power- 
ful mind catches fire; and one can 
imagine that solitary and passion- 
ate soul gathering all the wander- 
ing and inactive forces floating 
over the audience who, like chil- 
dren, watch the pictures and follow 
the events enacted on the stage. 



Helen was twelve years old when 
Miss Sullivan first took her to the 
theatre. It was at Boston, where 
Elsie Leslie, the child-actress, was 
playing the chief part in a piece 
entitled The Prince and the 
Pauper, Helen appears to have 
experienced ineffaceable emotions, 
at once glad and melancholy. We 
must really admire the courage of 
the teacher who subjected the lit- 
tle blind, deaf and dumb girl to so 
ciTiel a test, bringing her into di- 
rect contact with prohibited joys 
and exposing her to the worst suf- 
ferings. And even more do we ad- 
mire her who came victorious out 
of every struggle, having so to 
speak built upon her incomplete 
life a new life composed wholly of 
divination, intelligence and will- 
power. . . . 



XI 

Another thing proved to me 
how greatly Helen's sensibility 
differs from ours. The rush and 
bustle of towns wearies her; and 
she spoke to me of her love for the 
country : 

"People seem surprised at this 
preference," she said, dragging 
from her throat the reluctant syl- 
lables that come forth one by one 
in imperfect sounds. Then, with 
her favourite gesture, an abrupt 
movement that lifts her head and 
imparts a proud motion to her 
whole bust, she continued : 

"Yes, people who think that all 
sensations reach us through the eye 
and the ear have expressed surprise 
that I should notice any diiFerence, 

75 



<7e> 

except possibly the absence of 
pavements, between walking in city 
streets and in country roads. 
They forget that my whole body is 
alive to the conditions about me. 
The rumble and roar of the city 
smite the nerves of my face; and I 
feel the ceaseless tramp of an un- 
seen multitude; and the dissonant 
tumult frets my spirit. The grind- 
ing of heavy waggons on hard 
pavements and the monotonous 
clangour of machinery are all the 
more torturing to one's nerves if 
one's attention is not diverted by 
the panorama that is always pres- 
ent in the noisy streets to people 
who can see." 

And Helen found pleasure in de- 
scribing to me at length the joys 
which she derives from the sweet 
serenity of nature, her infinite love 
for flowers and especially for the 



trees, which she looks upon as 
friends, her hoating-trips, her ex- 
cursions into the mountains, her 
walks in the fields and meadows. 
And, in spite of her difficulty with 
her speech, which sometimes needed 
the help of a fraternal hand to lib- 
erate its lyric vehemence, I seemed 
to perceive through her shrill rhap- 
sodies the special fragrance and the 
mysterious beauty which belong in 
turns to morning, to twilight and 
to night, which belong, in short, to 
the hour that secretly enshrouds 
each memory deep at the bottom of 
our soul. Thanks to her marvel- 
lous imagination, I saw all that she 
had not seen, I heard all that she 
had not heard, I enjoyed all the 
pleasures that kept her palpitating 
before me with ardour and delight. 
Then, gradually taking courage, 
I ventured to ask her the question 



-C78> 

which all those who try to explain 
the miracle of her intelligence ask 
themselves: had the normal infant 
that she was for the first nineteen 
months of her life unconsciously be- 
queathed to her a legacy of shapes 
and lines and colours? With her 
perfect and transparent honesty, 
Helen hesitated for a second and 
then reminded me of a paragraph 
in her book which is evidence of her 
uneasiness on this point and which 
solves the problem in these words: 

"It seems to me that there is in each of 
us a capacity to comprehend the impres- 
sions and emotions which have been ex- 
perienced by mankind from the beginning. 
Each individual has a subconscious memory 
of the green earth and murmuring waters; 
and blindness and deafness cannot rob him 
of this gift from past generations. This 
inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense, 
a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in 
one/' 



-C79> 

Helen also spoke to me of her 
games, of her dogs and of her fond- 
ness for little children; and, in do- 
ing so, she used a charming phrase : 

'*I wish you knew," she was say- 
ing, "how prettily children spell 
into one's hand. They are the first 
blossom of humanity; and their 
tiny fingers are as it were the wild 
flowers of conversation" 

She also said : 

"It is delicious to feel one's palm 
tickled by a hahy's silky laughter '^ 

And, when I asked her for fur- 
ther explanations, she began with! 
these words : 

"Try to understand me. You 
will find that no sound, however 
beautiful, has the eloquence of si- 
lence and that we learn more by 
touch than by looking. Is there 
not something divine in the power 
of the human hand? They tell 



me that the glance of a loved one 
makes you quiver at a distance; 
but there is no distance in the touch 
of a cherished hand," 

And she concluded by exclaim- 
ing: 

"You are convinced now and 
you no longer think that I am shut 
out from the beauties of the phys- 
ical world? One finds marvels 
everywhere, even in darkness and 
silence; and, however defective my 
state may be, I know how to be 
happy in it." 

It is with this just and laudable 
pride that Helen is constantly as- 
serting the charms of her kingdom. 
Her dignity is like a vigilant 
watcher on the threshold of her 
night. We feel that she never dal- 
lies with vain melancholy; and, if 
we claim the right to enter the pre- 
cincts of her prison-house, she or- 



ders us to study it without pity or 
fear and with the noble joy which 
the mere wish for knowledge im- 
parts to the heart. 

Helen had been speaking with 
her lips for a long time, while hold- 
ing her friend's hand and pressing 
it nervously to the rhythm of her 
sentences. She did not seem tired ; 
and, whenever the strain was ap- 
parent, her bright smile was always 
there to soften an impression that 
might otherwise have been painful ; 
but I felt relieved each time that 
Mrs, Macy's fingers met her 
thought half way. How could I 
accustom myself to that barbarous 
voice repeating words, dictated by 
the most exquisite of souls, 
mechanically and with no feeling 
for their beauty? For everything 
is disconnected in this curious 
woman. Her means of expreg- 



sion, created by her will, are scat- 
tered materials which her intelli- 
gence is continually striving to 
bring together and which, for that 
very reason, make the blundering 
of a body that is not adapted to our 
conditions of life appear still 
stranger. Her hands, which open 
their palms to hear; her gestures, 
which are strangers; her voice, 
which awakens no echo within her; 
her words, which she patiently es- 
says to carve out of silence: all 
these are astounding and bewilder- 
ing. And the fairy-play begins 
with the spectacle of her imagina- 
tion, the imagination of a poet, 
springing up, bursting into full 
magnificence and falling back upon 
its own source like a fountain play- 
ing in the sunshine and flooding the 
cold stone basin with its wealth of 
pearls. 



XII 

JVIeanwhile, it was growing 
late; and I thought of the time, 
glad as I would have been to for- 
get it. The car, which had been 
put up a short distance away, had 
stolen silently across the thick snow 
and was now throbbing under the 
windows. The dull sound pro- 
duced no quiver in the air and 
passed unperceived by Helen ; but, 
when my companion rose suddenly 
to give an order to the driver, the 
blind girl started and turned her 
head in th^ direction of the depart- 
ing footsteps whose vibrations on 
the waxed floor had informed her 
of the movement. She guessed at 
once and stretched towards me 
hands full of ardent entreaty; and 

83 



then, impatient to express what was 
in her mind, she feverishly spelt 
out the syllables in the palm which 
her teacher held out to her. 

*'She does not wish you to go," 
said Anne Sullivan, ''without leav- 
ing some memory behind you. 
She wants you to sing her some- 
thing." 

I stood dumbfounded, thinking 
that I must have misunderstood; 
but Miss Sullivan explained and, 
following her instruction, I went 
up close to Helen, who placed her 
left hand very lightly on my mouth. 
In my emotion and bewilderment, 
I did not know what farewell song 
to fix upon. My memory was Uke 
an ant-hill into which something 
has been suddenly thrown, sending 
a whole little world helter-skelter; 
my mind sought in vain for an air, 
a melody, a song of some kind; and 



I was more surprised than Helen 
when my voice rose in the silence 
and sobbed out Maeterlinck's la- 
ment: 

" *Et^ s*il revenait un jour, que faut-il 

lui dire?* 
*Dites-lui qu'on I'attendit jusqu'a s*en 

mourir/ " 

At that moment, Helen, who had 
bowed her head under the weight 
of an overpowering attention, be- 
gan to lift up her right hand and 
her forefinger seemed to trace in 
space the exact shape of the line of 
music. Faithfully her gesture 
sank with the low notes and as- 
cended in a brief flight when a 
higher note intervened. At the 
same time, her lips studiously 
formed each word that I pro- 
nounced. 

My emotion indeed was scarcely 
in keeping with my singing. I 



was all wrapped up in the strange 
experience which set my heart beat- 
ing; and I remembered that Helen 
had written in one of her remark- 
able essays : 

"Every atom of my body is a vibro- 
scope.'* 

So she went on, without falter- 
ing or blundering, to the last verse: 

" *Dites-lui que j 'ai souri, de peur 
qu'il ne pleure/ '* 

Then, all anguish-stricken and 
panting, Helen remained fixed in 
a sort of inward contemplation 
whose gravity held all speech and 
movement suspended, after which 
her trembling hands passed, with 
slow precision, over my face, neck 
and hair, 

"She wants to remember you 
well," whispered Mrs. Macy. 



And, while Helen's fingers were 
learning me hy hearty I felt that 
each of their touches was removing 
a shadow and gradually revealing 
my features to the light of her 
mind. 

More touching than words or 
kisses, a wind from the unknown 
filled the sails of that mysterious 
farewell. I shall never forget it. 
The blind woman's actions were at 
once a blessing and a prayer. 
Like a thirsty soil, her darkness ab- 
sorbed my spirit and the mantle of 
her sacred silence enveloped my 
life in an infinite protection. It 
was more eloquent than the tend- 
erest solicitude. It manifested to 
us, through the anguish of a sepa- 
ration, the deep significance of a 
meeting which had taken place be- 
yond ourselves, almost unknown to 
us, and which was now sinking 



-ess:}. 

regretfully into our conscious- 
ness. . . . 

I kissed both her dear compan- 
ions; and my heart was wrung as 
though habit, that powerful link, 
had long united us. On the white 
piazza, in the cold landscape, I 
turned round for the last time. 
The winter sun was already red 
and lit up, as though they were so 
many sheets of metal, the windows 
whose bareness had struck me on 
my arrival ; but I was no longer as- 
tonished that Helen's home was like 
a glass-house bathed in light: I 
knew now that the rarest of human 
plants blossomed there in its pride. 

The blind girl stood erect against 
the glass door. Her hands were 
folded; and her white face glowed 
with passionate earnestness. 



PART II 



When I left Wrentham, I 
thought that I should never go 
back to it ; but on the day after my 
visit I had the opportunity of pro- 
longing my stay in America and I 
welcomed it joyfully and was soon 
making my way once more to the 
white cottage through the same si- 
lent country clad in its luminous 
mantle. 

Helen believes that I sailed yes- 
terday ; and I have not told her that 
I am coming. Will she recognise 
me at once? The experiment in- 
terests me, while another sentiment, 
deeper and more poignant, gives 
fresh zest to my curiosity. In the 
face of that personality, so vigor- 
ous and so sane, in the presence of 



91 



<^2^ 

that bright and beautiful intelli- 
gence, the problem was now in- 
verted: I no longer care about be- 
ing understood, I wish to under- 
stand! I wish to find the solution 
to the sublime riddle which she pre- 
sents. For, though Helen was 
born defective, she has, thanks to 
her pluck and her strength, be- 
come merely "different." She 
had to create her own relations 
with the universe; she adapted her- 
self to it in a fashion other than 
ours; and she moves in a world 
peculiar to herself. 

But how it irritates me to think 
of the moral short-sightedness that 
prevents us from quite naturally 
admitting human conditions that 
happen to deviate from our ownl 
While in the heroic girl's presence, 
I constantly felt as if I was losing 
my reason. During the hours that 



-C93> 

followed on our meeting, my en- 
thusiasm found no outlet save in 
tears; and even this time, despite 
my convictions, despite the hope 
which filled me with gladness and 
whose justification I was coming 
to her to find, I none the less felt 
an invincible terror throbbing be- 
neath my joy. • . • 



II 

llELEN was at work. We had 
hushed our footsteps; there was 
nothing to warn her. Mr. Macy 
softly opened the study-door; and 
the three of us stood on the thresh- 
old, happy to see each other again, 
lowering our voices instinctively as 
we talked and laughed, though her 
profound isolation protected her 
better than our discretion. Helen 
was at work and nothing could 
reach her ; she was wholly wrapped 
up in her thoughts, which ranged 
through continents. Never had I 
seen a more absolute picture of in- 
tellectual activity. 

Helen was using her typewriter; 
and the heavy silence around her 
was hammered regularly by the lit- 

94 



tie hard taps of each letter. Her 
rigid attitude was more striking 
than ever. She was sitting, 
dressed as on the last occasion, at 
her table by the window, where 
pots of flowers stand on shelves; 
and the same light as before turned 
the room into a radiant conserva- 
tory. Are not things, like human 
beings, loyal in their service to the 
blind girl? Do they not come be- 
tween her and the world so as to 
deaden every shock? I shall often, 
when I think of Helen, be con- 
scious of that fond conspiracy. 

I was in no hurry to betray my 
presence; and my companions un- 
derstood me. The picture which 
we were contemplating breathed 
such profound and absolute peace. 
Helen asserted in our eyes the 
strength and security of one living 
far removed from all. What a 



-C96> 

beautiful lesson in proportion, for 
my senses blinded by externals! 
What an incomparable lesson! 

"I did not take her in at all, the 
other day," I said to Mrs. Macy. 
"I was too much excited. This 
time, I have returned to Wren- 
tham like a disciple to his master; 
and, if I understand her as I would 
wish, I will try with all my faith 
and all my heart to carry her 
luminous teaching to the distant 
sisters for whom she had such a 
tender solicitude." 

And I imparted to Mrs. Macy 
all my ideas about her pupil. She 
told me that my deductions were 
correct and that I might assure my- 
self of this by direct reference to 
Helen. Without this precious 
permission, I should not have dared 
question her : is not her dear Anne 
like a good angel standing guard 



<97y 

over her cloistered life? Does she 
not spare her everything that can 
be spared her? 

I was about to go up to Helen, 
when I saw her suddenly stop 
working. She sighed, passed her 
hand over her forehead, which was 
a little contracted with the effort of 
thinking, and then resumed her 
writing. 

I waited a little while. I could 
not bear to interrupt her ; I was on 
the threshold of a temple and I was 
afraid lest, in knocking, I should 
do a mortal hurt to a prayer that 
seemed incarnate. 

The blind girl working opposite 
me was both very far away, because 
unaware of my presence, and very 
near, because of that unconscious- 
ness which allowed me, so to speak, 
to see the working of her mind. 
Until that moment, I had never 



realised the impenetrable armour 
furnished by our senses. I was 
going to kiss Helen; and my kiss 
would be laid right upon her naked 
soul. 

I kiss her, I stoop over her cheek, 
passing my arm around her neck; 
but she draws herself up, panting 
as though an electric current had 
touched her. Her nervous hands 
seek mine ; then they run along my 
arms, my neck, my cheeks, my hair 
and, for a second, they doubt: her 
quivering nostrils recognise some 
subtle odour, her lips move, she is 
just about to speak my name. . . . 
But it is impossible! She knows 
that I am gone : this very morning 
she was glad of the fine weather 
and hoping that the sea would be 
merciful to my pangs. She re- 
jects the syllables that force them- 
selves upon her and feverishly con- 



-C 99 > 

tinues her examination. I am 
wearing quite different clothes; 
and that also disconcerts her. 
Nevertheless, she finds the game 
exciting. Her face lights up with 
pleasure, for the feast of hearts has 
already begun. She laughs, I 
laugh too; and my gaiety removes 
her last doubts. Then she kisses 
me, hugs me, shows me her affec- 
tion with adorable smiles and ges- 
tures ; she falters words full of hap- 
piness ; and I see the thousand pure 
enthusiasms of that generous na- 
ture glowing in all their radiance. 



Ill 

As I make my excuses for inter- 
rupting her work, she joyfully in- 
forms me that this is almost a 
holiday. Her singing-master will 
soon be here with his wife ; they are 
very dear friends of hers ; they both 
of them come two or three times a 
week to spend the afternoon, for 
the lessons are very tiring to Helen 
and it is only possible to work for 
a few moments at a time. In the 
intervals, they walk about and 
xaiK. • • • 

Just then, Mrs. White arrives. 
Mr. White is detained at the 
Boston Conservatoire, but his wife 
will give the lesson on the admir- 
able principles which he has in- 
vented for the deaf, dumb and blind 



100 



•cioi> 

girl's benefit. They propose to 
start at once. We go to the par- 
lour. I do not feel embarrassed 
by the presence of a stranger. 
Mrs. White is so thoroughly in har- 
mony with the household that I feel 
as if I had met her here be- 
fore. The reason is that the same 
love shines in the beautiful pro- 
tective glance in which she envelops 
Helen; besides, who would not be 
affected by that rare atmosphere of 
wholesome simplicity which reigns 
at Wrentham? 

Helen is standing against the 
piano. One hand is placed on the 
neck of Mrs. White, who, after 
striking a chord, sings a note. 
Vaguely guided by the vibration 
received in the palm of her hand, 
the deaf and dumb girl utters a 
sound, or rather a sort of ardent 



-C102> 

plaint that seems flung like a buoy 
into an unknown sea. . . . 

But the teacher's patient ear 
seizes an indication, fleeting, no 
doubt, but yet sufficient to explain 
to the pupil her distance from the 
port for which she is steering; and 
they begin all over again, twenty 
and thirty times in succession. 

"Higher, Helen, higher still, and 
remember the vibration," says Mrs. 
Macy, who is holding her right 
hand and thus saving her the eff^ort 
of reading what the singing- 
mistress is saying. 

The difficulty is great enough as 
it is; I can feel that the girl finds 
it terribly hard to draw her poor 
lost voice from the abyss in which 
it is struggling; and, when, after 
ten minutes, the practice is stopped, 
her face relaxes and her attitude is 
eloquent of satisfaction at a well- 



earned rest. Then she takes my 
arm affectionately, to return to her 
study: 

"We can talk better here," she 
says; and, as she utters the words, 
she calls my attention to the in- 
creased flexibility of her voice after 
those exercises; and this encour- 
ages her to hope that she will be 
able to speak in public in a few 
years' time. 

She would so much like to give 
lectures. 

"On what?" 

"Oh, first on the education of 
deaf, dumb and blind women," she 
replies, quickly. "And then on 
women in general." 

Helen goes on to explain that she 
once had a feminine ideal which she 
has outgrown, as it failed to stand 
the severe test of her criticism. 
She believes that women, with their 



judgment and their patient energy, 
are called upon to play their part 
in the world's education: then, she 
says, men will no longer address 
themselves to women's weakness, 
but to their strength; and women 
will be more precious in propor- 
tion as their character is devel- 
oped. 

She has two favourite heroines: 
Iphigenia, whom she loves for the 
conflicting ideas that rend her soul, 
and Maeterlinck's Ariane, who, by 
her deeds and words, seems to cre- 
ate a new morality of freedom, 
love and daring. 

"I find them admirable," she 
says, "alike in their virtues and 
their failings." And, with a smile, 
she adds, "Horace, it is true, tells 
us, in one of his odes, that many 
faults are virtues which we do not 
understand. But, in any case, we 



ought to give gentler names to the 
failings of those we love." 

"You, Helen, whose hfe is less 
subject to distractions than ours 
and who live above all in the spirit, ) 

you must have very few faults?" I 

"Then they are all the greater!" ( 

says the blind girl, laughing. \ 

Ah, dear Helen, your victory an- ), 

swers for you : if you were not de- \ 

termined to the point of obstinacy, ! 

courageous to rashness, inquisitive ^ 

almost to disobedience and self- 
willed almost to rebellion, how S 
should you have lightened your | 
darkness? Horace spoke truly, I 
for our faults are often the ex- \ 
tremes of our virtues; without I 
them, those virtues remain passive ; 
thanks to them, they live, they dare 
and they become magnificently 
shameless. 

"I am always angry at my slow- 



ness," she cries, with an energy that 
drives the syllables against the sides 
of her throat. "I grow irritated at 
the stupidity of this machine of 
mine." 

And, so that I may know of 
which machine she speaks, she 
strikes her head and her throat with 
mock ferocity. Then she goes on: 

**My ideas fight wildly for ex- 
pression, as in The Blue Bird the 
little Children of the Future fight 
to come into the world. But 
Father Time keeps them from get- 
ting out. I hope he won't do the 
same with my ideas ! . . ." 

We all laugh at Helen's fancy, 
but I cannot help protesting. She 
calls herself slow ! It is only a very 
short time since light has pene- 
trated to her soul; and yet she 
seems the fruit of a century of pa- 
tience. Tenacious as nature, as 



the drop of water that wears away 
the stone, as the ivy whose un- 
wearying vigour clothes the ruins 
in an eternal spring, her existence 
is the emblem of human effort over- 
coming all the powers of darkness 
and steering straight for the light. 
She calls herself slow! And we 
see her powerful mind, more alive 
than those at work in their many- 
windowed palaces, advancing with 
a firm step in the darkness of a tun- 
nel that has no outlet, queen of a 
kingdom maintained by force of 
will, a kingdom created by sheer 
courage. And what courage! A 
courage that transcends our imag- 
ination, when we come to think 
that the same quality that inspires 
our moments of heroism is the 
source and origin of the smallest 
of her pleasures. 

Not a single action can she ac- 



-C108> 

complish without a superhuman ef- 
fort, whether she talks to us of her 
work, her amusements or her plans, 
whether she goes to a theatre or a 
concert, or visits a town or mu- 
seum, or simply strolls in her 
garden. If her courage forsook 
her, she would be lost; yet who 
knows if she has not profited by this 
iron necessity? Is not her intelli- 
gence incessantly stimulated by the 
exercise of an indispensable will? 
Have not her poor, hard-won re- 
sources made her retain in her 
woman's nature the mental acute- 
ness and receptiveness of a child? 



IV 

ilELENi also speaks to me of 
feminine evolution, in which she 
suspects a danger for her sisters: 

"By asserting their rights, will 
they not lose their charm?" she asks. 

Then she rejects this thought 
with a shrug of her shoulders: 

"After all," she says, "what does 
it matter what we are? The im- 
portant thing is what we are able 
to do." 

All Helen's psychology lies in 
that reflection. Cut oiF from ex- 
ternals, she has freed herself from 
them; and why should this simple 
girl care about a beauty which is 
the luxury of the eyes? She natu- 
rally knows nothing of the thou- 
sand precious threads of which our 

109 



-ciio> 

woman's strength is woven. . . • 
I rise absent-mindedly and catch 
sight of Helen in the glass. A 
strange vision! With her back 
turned to the window and to the 
bright snow-clad landscape, the 
blind girl is seated stiff and 
straight in a chair which happens 
to be opposite a mirror. Her set, 
unconscious face looks like a por- 
trait in its frame. Her broad, 
finely-shaped head stands out 
against the vast wilderness of snow ; 
and the sun draws a glittering halo 
round her head. Helen appears to 
me like a saint imagined by some 
Italian primitive. The fixed eyes 
do not answer to the inflexion of 
the face; the neck is a little stiff; 
the hands clasped over the knees 
are not really resting: she is a 
Cimabue virgin, infinitely touching 
in her simplicity. Absolutely ab- 



-ciii> 

sorbed in thought, dominated by a 
definite, obvious intelligence, she 
nevertheless suggests something 
unfinished. . . . Many times al- 
ready I have asked myself what 
Helen lacks ; the mirror tells me : it 
has not instructed her; it has never 
told her her charms and her de- 
fects; it has never revealed her 
image to her. That image lives 
and dies in the mirror, whereas with 
us it is the revealer, teaching 
us, correcting us and becoming 
the eternal companion of a grace 
which it unceasingly abandons and 
directs by turns. We can neither 
elude nor flee it; it is always with 
us; it symbolises our womanhood; 
it is distinct and fantastic, trans- 
parent and coloured like a figure 
in a stained-glass window through 
which we see the world outside. 
We shall never ourselves know how 



^112> 

far that inseparable sister influ- 
ences our gravest actions and 
deeds. • . . 

But, though we have need to see 
ourselves in order to find fulfil- 
ment, it is not in the glass of the 
docile and faithful mirror that we 
really know ourselves. It is by the 
looks of others; for the eyes 
of others seem to pour out the 
beauty that fills them. There is 
here a mysterious interchange. 
Does not the woman who loves rise 
and grow to the height of the eyes 
that contemplate her? 

Looks that tremble and glance, 
looks that flame, pursue and weigh, 
prayerful, joyful or sorrowful 
looks, cold looks that judge, blame 
or approve: one and all they give, 
one and all they teach us to know 
ourselves. 'Tis therefore in the 
critical flash of others' looks that 



-C113> 

we behold the truth; and we are 
the prisoners of the harmony that 
is expected of us. 

Dear Helen has not stirred from 
her frame: has she guessed my re- 
flections during my long silence? 
I think so, I am even a little in- 
clined to fear so; and at all risks I 
express to her the other side of my 
thought: 

"Independent of externals, 
Helen, you make for reality by the 
most direct paths." 

"And therefore," she says, "my 
life is harder, but simpler than that 
of others." 

Helen in fact is close to that ^ 
unity which we seek in vain, though 
wisdom promises it to us. To all 
of us there comes a day when our 
life is simplified. Dreams and 
vanities are in us like banners on 
the day after a festival; withered 



flowers, faded ribbons, streaming 
colours : in the face of our anxiety, 
nothing remains but the essential. 
But, just because the details be- 
come effaced, the horizon widens, 
distances appear and other and 
graver problems arise. . . . 

"And yet," replies the blind girl, 
"that evolution has taken place in 
my world. What others learn 
from life I have learnt from the 
books that are my sphere." 

"That is true," says Mrs. Macy, 
who is following our conversation. 
"There is nothing that Helen does 
not know; I have never hidden any- 
thing from her; besides, she is too 
clear-sighted for it to have been 
possible." 

"Then I may safely ask her what 
she thinks of love and happiness?" 

"Oh, certainly!" replied Mrs. 
Macy. "She has thought a great 



-C115> 
deal of the love and happiness of 



women." 



And she at once communicates 
my question to Helen. 

Helen remains impassive and 
says, slowly: 

"All real love is precious." 

But I insist: 

"I am not speaking of love in 
general, Helen." 

Then I see a soft light of resig- 
nation pass over her face; and, in 
a serious tone, she says: 

"What woman has not longed 
for love? But ... I think it is 
forbidden me, like music and 
light. . . ." 

I look at the bUnd girl. She 
sighs and lowers her lids as though 
her eyes might betray her. I see 
her youth and the glow of health in 
her cheeks; a dull rebellion stirs 
me; and, with my natural inclina- 



-C116> 

tion for sympathy, I feel a need to 
depreciate the too-delicious joys 
which a barbarous injustice seems 
to deny her: 

"Ah, you could be loved, Helen, 
you could, I am sure of it ; but I do 
not know that you ought to wish it. 
You would not have done what you 
have done, if you had known love! 
You do not know how dangerous it 
is, how it makes us live on 
mountain-peaks in the midst of 
abysses. We are close to the sky, 
but we turn giddy; and all the illu- 
sions of space assail us; and the 
too-bright light burns us; and we 
are lost, if we do not contrive, by a 
sort of contradictory will, to draw a 
new force from the very heart of 
total surrender. . . . No, do not 
regret love. It is the enemy of our 
intelligence, of our strength and 
even of our worth. You see. 



-C117> 

Helen, between two intelligent 
people, experience of love, though 
it be favourable to the man, may 
be fatal to the woman. Whereas 
the man becomes stronger by a love 
which his nature orders and meas- 
ures, the woman is lost in a senti- 
ment that submerges her. . • ." 

I could have added that, to my 
mind, it is better to contribute to 
the happiness and accomplishment 
of a being than slightly to raise our 
small stature ; I could have told her 
that hfe is very ephemeral, that 
values are very relative and glories 
very illusive; but I was delighted, 
on the contrary, not to be seen or 
heard, for the sound of my voice 
would have belied the rigour of my 
words; and, in spite of myself, I 
felt that my mouth, as it curved 
into a smile, clothed them in a light 
that transfigured them. And yet 



I was not lying, dear Helen! We 
all know that our truest sentiment 
becomes modified according as we 
discover it on one side or another 
and that, when sincerity, like 
limpid water, penetrates most 
deeply into our soul, it is then that 
we feel ourselves to be in a per- 
petual contradiction. 

"I divine," said the blind girl, 
"all the sorrows contained in the 
joys of love. There is nothing 
that I do not know of the suffer- 
ings of the world." 

Here is Helen speaking again, 
with some bitterness, of the suffer- 
ing of the world. 

"But where are you, Helen, to 
talk like this ? In what mysterious 
country do you dwell? You do 
not suffer, do you?" 

She smiled and reflected. Then 
she said : 



-C119> 

''Happiness is like the mountain- 
summit. It is sometimes hidden 
by clouds, but we know that it is 
there." 

"Is it always there, Helen?" 

"When we wish it, because it de- 
pends upon our state of mind." 

"And have you the strength al- 
ways to wish it?" 

"No." And, shrugging her 
shoulders a little cynically, she 
added, "Am I not a woman? I 
weep as much as the others, but I 
believe it to be good for the soil, 
like rain. All my visions are born 
of love and poetry; and . . . and 
those flowers cannot bloom without 
tears." 

Helen almost always expresses 
herself thus, in images and sym- 
bols; one feels that she is wonder- 
fully sensitive to the music of words 
and to rhythm, that mysterious 



force which governs the truest es- 
sential beauty. Is it not the sense 
of art that has been largely instru- 
mental in saving her? Is it not 
this precious gift which bestows an 
unwearying curiosity upon her and 
attaches her to life in spite of all 
things? Helen possesses the im- 
agination of a poet to whom 
reality, however admirable it may 
be, is never more than a starting- 
point . . , and we may well ask 
ourselves if she would not be dis- 
appointed were she suddenly to be- 
hold a world which her mind has 
clothed in the most glittering en- 
chantment. . . . 

After a moment's thought, 
Helen resumes : 

"I should like one day to have 
the power to express man's prayer 
to the light!" 

And, as she speaks these words. 



a charming smile irradiates her 
features. 

"Helen, you shall utter that 
prayer which you already live, you 
shall utter it, for you dwell in a 
transparent night, whereas our 
ever-straying senses turn a bright 
sky into a cloud-darkened day. If 
you but knew how few things we 
see, how badly we hear and how 
incompletely!" 

*'Are not our senses the servants 
of our mind?" 

"They ought to be, but they di- 
vide and scatter our forces by 
bringing us too much; our con- 
sciousness involuntarily and a? 
every moment registers a thousand 
useless things; and that is why it 
advises us to flee the world if we 
would work and think. We do 
not live intensely unless we know 
how to close our lives to the outer 



world. It may be love that keeps 
us between two flowering hedges, 
checking our aspirations as they 
mount to heaven; it may be that 
work and a single idea imprison us ; 
it may be that a dream envelops 
us, an aim fascinates us or our will 
erects its iron barrier between us 
and fancy: our strength grows 
only in isolation. Our notion of 
infinity begins where sound and 
shape die. To you, infinity is. here, 
in the breeze that cools your brow, 
in the perfume which, however 
subtle, remains, annihilating the 
years, burying the past; infinity is 
here, in the hand that presses 
yours. . . ." 

For the last few minutes, Helen, 
a little tired of reading on my lips, 
had been listening and replying 
through the mind of her faithful 



-{:i23> 

companion. Suddenly she asked 
me: 

"Have you religion?" And she 
added, "I believe in God." 

I remember greatly admiring 
Anne Sullivan's account of the in- 
tellectual development of her pupil. 
After recognising Helen's sane 
mind and enlightened judgment, 
she writes : 

"No creed or dogma has been taught 
to Helen; nor has any effort been made 
to force religious beliefs on her atten- 
tion." 

Helen's religion lies especially in 
self-abnegation and love for others ; 
and it is thus that she believes her- 
self to have found happiness : 

"As the world is in ourselves," 
she said, "happiness is not outside 
us; it is not a thing which we can 



attain; if we seek it, we do not find 
it. . . ." 

"You are right, Helen; and that 
is why we ought not to be surprised 
to see so many creatures who have 
everything to make them happy 
and who are not happy. What is 
the use of possessing the elements 
of happiness if we have not in our- 
selves the essential energy that 
builds it up patiently and maintains 
it in spite of all? But in you this 
energy, so rare in any case, be- 
comes heroic. . . ." 

With a gesture expressing gen- 
tle denial, Helen replied: 

"I don't know." 

And, after a pause, she contin- 
ued, gravely: 

" To find one's life, one must first 
lose it. Mine was lost a thousand 
times ; I could not recover the half 
of it." 



-C125> 

One might well think upon this 
maxim, which teaches us one of the 
great secrets of our moral force. 
It increases in proportion as we ex- 
pend it. Ask little of it; and we 
have nothing. Be insatiable; and 
it becomes inexhaustible. 

I was eager to ask her the ques- 
tion that was burning my lips: 

"Then you are happy?" 

Helen was just then bending 
over the hand of Mrs. Macy, who 
communicated the question to her. 
She drew herself up proudly: 

"If I were not happy, my life 
would be a failure. I am very 
happy." 

"Can I in all truth, Helen, hold 
you up as an example to your dis- 
tant sisters and call you *The Girl 
who found the Blue Bird'?" 

The white peace of the cottage 
at Wrentham seemed to fly into a 



<126> 

thousand splinters like a pane of 
glass suddenly smashed by a vol- 
ley of stones. Helen was scream- 
ing with delight ; she had sprung up 
quickly and, walking across the 
room, uttered notes that sought to 
strike the joyous pitch of a song of 
gladness : 

*'Yes, yes, it's true!" she shouted. 
"I have found the Blue Bird! I 
have foimd the Blue Bird!" 

And in her excitement she 
pressed her hands to her forehead, 
clasped them convulsively in a tri- 
umphant prayer and unclasped 
them to seize hold of mine. . . . 



1 HE sound of that captive hap- 
piness will ring in my ears all my 
life long. Even now, when I am 
speaking of the heroine, it floods 
my memories with the impetuos- 
ity of a torrent that tears away 
everything on its passage; and the 
miracle of Helen's life will always 
have two aspects in my eyes. It 
is a miracle of patience no less than 
of passion. 

Her life seems to me a sublime 
lesson; and can we describe her as 
abnormal when we see her wander- 
ing in a world where so many mys- 
teries dwell? Between her and 
us, space no longer exists, if we 
think of the space that stretches 
from the known to the unknown. 

127 



And can we say that her destiny 
is incomplete? Helen is the ex- 
ample necessary to our day, the 
glorification of effort, intelligence 
and strength, the sanctification of 
continuous and hidden heroism. 
She is a primitive saint and a saint 
of to-morrow! She is the arch- 
angel of the victories that are eter- 
nal and of the virtues that do not 
change with moral systems or with 
peoples. 

Be happy, Helen, and be free, 
for you have proved that there is 
no real prison save in mediocrity, 
that the darkness which has no end- 
ing is the darkness of the mind and 
that mortal silence reigns only in 
loveless hearts. 

But listen to me : I would crave 
of you one thing. Since you pos- 
sess every heroic quaUty, we need 
not hesitate to wish you a crown- 



ing one. Deprived of sight, of 
hearing and of speech, you have 
been able to create afresh Hght, 
harmony and language; you know 
what we see, you know what we 
hear, you know how to communi- 
cate with us. Cease to astonish us : 
you have joined us, you wished it 
and you have succeeded. Hence- 
forth forsake this world, which 
you have heroically conquered, and 
lead us into regions that are closed 
to us. Tell us the secret of your 
wisdom and your light. By the 
science of touch and smell, you 
have revealed to us a kingdom 
which we knew imperfectly; there 
is another, Helen, which we do not 
know at all : it is the world of eter- 
nal darkness and silence. All the 
sighs of life heave and throb in our 
solitude. We know darkness and 
silence only that we may seek re- 



-C130> 

pose there or savour in them the 
profound joys that dread light and 
sound. To us, shade and quiet- 
ness are refuges to which we resort 
with eyes glutted with light, ears 
jSlled with harmony. 

Tell us what voices charmed 
your tomb, what stars lighted it. 
Analyse for us the springs of a 
power which we cannot conceive. 

Helen, wonderful Helen, you 
who have surpassed us in strength 
and wisdom, tell us by what golden 
gate we may join you in our turn! 



THE END 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





013 443 926 9 % 



